AI Apps Boom: General Assistants Dominate, ChatGPT Earns Big, Utility AI Surges 2990% YoY

Appfigures released its AI report ttled Rise of AI Apps: Key Trends Shaping 2025 which talks about different demand, growth and revenue trends in AI that we can see this year. There has been a rise in AI apps and there’s been a demand for them globally. According to estimates by Appfigures, the US is gaining the most profits from AI apps, with 64% of the revenue of AI apps being from the US. This gain in revenue in the US started back in 2023 and it has been going up since. Other countries in top five are way behind the US in revenue, with the UK being responsible for 6% of revenue, Germany being responsible for 5% of revenue and China and Canada being responsible for 4% each revenue of AI apps. These figures seem small but these countries are gaining more than $100 million in consumer spendings on AI apps.

Developers may be thinking that the US seems like a good market but there’s a lot of competition too. Smart developers know that they can gain much more profit from smaller markets so they are optimizing there. The demand for AI apps is rising in all parts of the world and it is expected to rise even more. The quarterly revenue of AI apps has also increased a lot in the past year globally, with $221 million in the US alone and $150 in other top ten countries. This is a 16% increase from Q3 in the US and 32% increase from Q3 from other countries.

People often keep on asking if there’s money in AI and it’s funny because AI apps are making money more than anything. Latest AI industry report by Appfigures shows that AI is making more than $2 billion in 2025 and will generate much more moving forward. For the report, Appfigures analyzed different AI apps and divided them into 12 categories. When the apps were listed down according to the revenues they were generating, the top 1000 apps by revenue were General Assistants also known as thin wrappers. First party apps like ChatGPT and Claude weren’t added in this category and this category was all about third-party apps. These apps earned $726 million from App Store and Google Play in gross revenue.

ChatGPT was included in the Core Models category and got $541 million in gross revenue. Before ChatGPT, there was hype about Graphics Generators as well as Photo and Video Editors and these categories saw $210 million in revenue. The Utility category got $69 million in gross revenue which isn’t a lot compared to other categories but it has been growing a lot since 2024. So, this shows that demand for AI apps is rising and it is expected to rise even more in 2025.

So now comes the questions about opportunities for developers in AI apps and the answer is there’s countless opportunities in some categories. Obviously, releasing a thin wrapper isn’t going to do much in 2025 than it did in 2023 but there are some other opportunities Appfigues mentioned in their report that can get you into action. By looking at revenue and growth rate of some apps, it was easy to conclude where work can be done to gain the most advantage. Core Models and General Assistants were excluded from these analyses because anyone can build a new LLM.

The analysis showed that the Utility category has the most opportunities for developers, with fifth most revenue overall. It is not as saturated as Photo and Video Editing Apps and Graphics Generators, with 2990% YoY revenue growth in 2024. There are a lot of types in Utility categories like apps identifying plants and coins and it is growing to grow a lot to add more convenience in people’s lives.

The other category which can open a lot of opportunities is Voice records which is smaller but is growing quickly. Voice records have generated $24 million in revenue which is less but it is a 2770% YoY growth in 2024. Even though there was a little decline in this category in Q4 2024, a lot of more apps are being developed in this category. The report says that each category of AI apps saw a three digit increase which shows that there are a lot of opportunities for developers in AI apps.

Now comes the insights of age of users of AI apps and most of us will think that young people are the ones who use AI apps the most. Even though it is correct there are a lot of variations too. The young people between the ages of 18-24 are mostly the users of companion apps like Character AI, with 65% of its users being people in this age category. 56% of Education apps are also used by young people between ages 18-24 and 20% users are of 50+ ages.

On the other hand, 41% of users of Transcription Apps are 18-24 years old, while 23% users are 50+. Writing tools are also being used by 23% 50+ people while 48% 18-24 years old are using them. Music apps have the most share of 25-34 year olds (20%), the most among all categories. People of 34-49 ages are mostly using Health & Fitness apps, with 19% of users in this category.

So looking at all these age dynamics of users of different AI apps, one thing is interesting– even though young people (18-24) are the biggest users of these apps, older users (50+) are the second biggest. This shows that demand is increasing in all groups and while there are some most saturated apps, there are also less competitive categories with growing opportunities.





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